Wi-Fi and Web TV

Introduction and History of Internet

The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location. The history of Internet revolves around four distinct aspects. There is the technological evolution that began with early research on packet switching and the ARPANET (and related technologies), and where current research continues to expand the horizons of the infrastructure along several dimensions, such as scale, performance, and higher level functionality. There is the operations and management aspect of a global and complex operational infrastructure. The Internet today is a widespread information infrastructure, the initial prototype of what is often called the National (or Global or Galactic) Information Infrastructure. Its history is complex and involves many aspects - technological, organizational, and community.

The very first interactions that were recorded through networking were a series of memo written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962. Licklider was the first head of the computer research program at DARPA in October 1962. Then Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first paper on packet switching theory in July 1961 and convinced Roberts of the theoretical feasibility of communications using packets rather than circuits, which was a major step towards the advancement of computer networking.

The other key step was to make the computers interact with each other, in the yea 1965 Roberts connected the TX-2 computer in Mass to the Q-32 in California with a low speed dial-up telephone line which resulted in first wide-area computer network. In late 1966 Roberts went to DARPA to develop the computer network concept and envisioned ARPANET. In august 1968 Roberts and the DARPA funded community developed the packet switches called Interface Message Processors (IMP’s).

In October 1972 Kahn organized a large demonstration of ARPANET at the International Computer Communication Conference and in early 1972 electronic mail was introduced. In March Ray Tomlinson at BBN wrote the basic email message send and read software, motivated by the need of the ARPANET developers for an easy coordination mechanism. In July, Roberts expanded its utility by writing the first email utility program to list, selectively read, file, forward, and respond to messages. From there email took off as the largest network application for over a decade. This was a harbinger of the kind of activity we see on the World Wide Web today, namely, the enormous growth of all kinds of "people-to-people" traffic.

Wi-Fi and Streaming Technology

Streaming Technology allows you to transmit audio, video and other multimedia over the internet. Streaming media services such as Video Desk can be used to deliver audio and video, without making the viewer wait tediously to download files. As your computer plays the media file, it continues to buffer additional media content from the streaming server so that the flow is not interrupted. This process is almost invisible except for a short period of initial buffering.

With Streaming Media the goal is to bypass the "narrow-bandwidth" limitations of the World Wide Web. Using Internet-based technologies that are mostly proprietary, media data is fed to the user as the media is viewed. So this technology uses a continuous connection, just like the one required for the transmission of a program to your TV or listening to the radio. You receive the images or audio just before you see or hear them. You do not need to download your media before being able to view it.

Types of Streaming Media

The two main methods of streaming video are Streaming Servers (true streaming) and HTTP streaming. Delivering video files as HTTP streaming or HTTP delivery is the same protocol used to deliver web pages. For this reason it is easy to set up and use on almost any website, without requiring additional software or special hosting plans. Streaming media works a bit differently — the end user can start watching the file almost as soon as it begins downloading. In effect, the file is sent to the user in a (more or less) constant stream, and the user watches it as it arrives. The obvious advantage with this method is that no waiting is involved. Streaming media has additional advantages such as being able to broadcast live events (sometimes referred to as a webcast or netcast).True streaming video must be delivered from a specialized streaming server. Websites Like youtube, Google and Zapak.com use streaming video to deliver video in various file formats.

Introduction to How Wi-Fi Works

Many people also use wireless networking, also called WiFi or 802.11 networking, to connect their computers at home, and an increasing number of cities use the technology to provide free or low-cost Internet access to residents. In the near future, wireless networking may become so widespread that you can access the Internet just about anywhere at any time, without using wires.

WiFi has a lot of advantages. Wireless networks are easy to set up and inexpensive. A wireless network uses radio waves, just like mobiles and television and radios do. In fact, communication across a wireless network is a lot like two-way radio communication. A computer's wireless adapter translates data into a radio signal and transmits it using an antenna. A wireless router receives the signal and decodes it. It sends the information to the Internet using a physical, wired Ethernet connection.

802.11n: The future if Wi-Fi

Today's Wi-Fi gear has limited range, is highly susceptible to interference from cordless phones and other wireless devices, and is much slower than old-fashioned Ethernet. All this is set to change with the advent of 802.11n. The 802.11n standard is still being ironed out, and the IEEE, doesn't expect to ratify this developing specification until 2006. However, products based on competing versions of 802.11n's powerful smart-antenna technology, called MIMO, are already on store shelves. MIMO stands for multiple input multiple output and allows a wireless device to make more efficient use of data transmissions in indoor environments. The new 802.11n will include some version of MIMO, and it promises to deliver faster throughput than Ethernet and double the range of today's Wi-Fi gear.